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Sound and Motion in 
Wordsworth's Poetry 

BY 

MAY TOMLINSON 




ARTIetveRITATIt 



BOSTON 

The Poet Lore Company Publishers 

1905 



Copyright 1905 by May Tomlinson 
All Rights Reserved 



uORAflYof OONGXtSS 
Iwu Copies rtec«<vcii 



JUL 13 1905 












Uniform with this volume 

The Retreat of a Poet Naturalist 

(John Burroughs) 

by 

Clara Barrus, M. D. 



Printed at 

THE GORHAM PRESS 

Boston, U. S, A, 



SOUND AND MOTION IN 
WORDSWORTH'S POETRY 



A CAREFUL reading of English 
poetry will reveal the fact that 
the sense of the beauty of sound 
and motion is more largely de- 
veloped in the poets — ^with, per- 
haps, two or three exceptions — than is the 
sense of the beauty of form and color. We 
read of sunshine and shadow, of the gleam, 
the glow, the sheen; but we find compara- 
tively little mention of color. Indeed, the 
poets themselves seem to place the latter sense 
on a lower plane of estimation. Wordsworth, 
in his autobiographical poem, tells us that 
he was never "bent over much on superficial 
things, pampering myself with meagre novel- 
ties of form and color." And yet Ruskin de- 
clares that "of all God's gifts to the sight of 
man, color is the holiest, the most divine, the 
most solemn." It is the painter, we must re- 
member, to whom the beauty of color seems 
the highest beauty. To the musician, the 
deepest pleasure is the pleasure that he re- 
3 



SOUND AND MOTION 

ceives through the ear. Color is naught to 
him except as it is represented in intensity of 
sound, in crescendo and diminuendo, in a deh- 
cate shading of tone. And the poet, in his 
susceptibilities, is more akin to the musician 
than to the painter. 

The painter's interest is in objects, his aim 
is to reproduce; so, necessarily, he is con- 
cerned with form and color. The poet's art, 
more than that of the painter, — more than 
that of the musician, even, — is suggestive: it 
makes larger demands upon the imagination. 
And so, because, among the arts, poetry, both 
in him who creates and in him who merely en- 
joys, demands the largest exercise of the imag- 
ination, it is the most "effective agency for 
cherishing within us the ideal." "Its great 
function," says one who is great and good, 
"is to keep alive man's sensibilities and in- 
stincts, and thus fit him for the reception of 
high spiritual truths." 

I have said that the poet's first delight is in 

sound and motion. Passages innumerable, 

from many poets, might be cited as illustrative 

of this sensitiveness. There is Coleridge's 

4 



IN WORDSWORTH'S POETRY 

"Kubla Khan," with Its seething turmoil and 
mazy motion. The poem is itself a strange 
wierd melody. Shelley's description in "The 
Revolt of Islam" of "an eagle and a serpent 
wreathed in fight" affords a remarkable ex- 
ample of hfe and power, of dizzy speed and 
impetuous flight, of wheeling, floating, flut- 
tering, leaping motion. Tennyson's reminis- 
cence, in "The Gardener's Daughter," of a 
certain May morning with all its sound is 
proof enough of his delight in melody. We 
know what joy even the memory of the 
thrush's song gave Browning, when, far from 
home, he thought of England in May time, 
when "the white-throat builds and all the 
swallows!" Every student knows the morn- 
ing and evening sounds as enumerated by Mil- 
ton in those companion poems, "L' Allegro" 
and "II Penseroso." Mrs. Browning's poetry 
is fairly vibrant with sound. I have in mind 
as I write some very beautiful lines in "The 
Drama of Exile," suggestive of smooth-flow- 
ing motion and soft, low sounds. 

But, of all the poets, Wordsworth, in his 
enjoyment of nature, is most alive to the pow- 
5 



SOUND AND MOTION 

er and beauty of sound. When a boy, he 
would walk alone under the quiet stars, and, 
at such times, he felt "whate'er there is of 
power in sound to breathe an elevated mood, 
by form or image unprofaned." "And I would 
stand," he tells us, "if the night blackened 
with a coming storm, beneath some rock, list- 
ening to notes that are the ghostly language 
of the ancient earth, or make their abode in 
distant winds." Of this boyhood time we 
read, 

"Ah! when I have hung 
Above the raven's nest, by knots of grass 
And half-inch fissures in the slippery rock 
But ill sustained, and almost (so it seemed) 
Suspended by the blast that blew amain, 
Shouldering the naked crag, oh, at that time 
While on the perilous ridge I hung alone. 
With what strange utterance did the loud dry 

wind 
Blow through my ear! the sky seemed not a 

sky 
Of earth — and with what motion moved the 

clouds!" 



IN WORDSWORTH'S POETRY 

Wordsworth always heard voices : the voice 
of the mountain torrent, the tones of water- 
falls, the murmur of the streams, the sighing 
of the wind through the leaves of a tree, the 
soft murmur of the vagrant bee.* 

The number of poems in which we fail to 
find some mention of waters — of sea or lake, 
of river or brook, of mountain torrent or wa- 
terfall — is not large. Indeed, by actual count, 
among the whole number of Wordsworth's 
poems, there are scarcely thirty which have 
not some reference to sound or motion : sound 
or flow of waters, song or flight of bird, or 
the movement of clouds. Wordsworth des- 
cribed with rare truthfulness what he saw and 
heard. A daily wanderer among woods and 
fields, familiar with mountains and lakes and 
sounding cataracts, it is not strange that he 
should report of smooth fields; of white 

*A11 through my paper I have woven into 
my sentences phrases and clauses, which the 
student of Wordsworth's poetry will recog- 
nize as quotations. I have not thought it 
necessary, in these instances, to use the marks 
of quotation. M. T. 

7 



SOUND AND MOTION 

sheets of water; of the cuckoo's melancholy 
call ; of the trembling lake ; of motions of de- 
light that haunt the sides of the green hills; of 
breezes and soft airs; of mists and winds that 
dwell among the hills; of notes which, in his 
tuneful course, the wind draws forth from 
rocks, woods, caverns, heaths, and crashing 
shores. 

The following description of "The Simplon 
Pass" is one of the finest of Wordsworth's 
sound poems: 

— "Brook and road 
Were fellow-travellers in this gloomy Pass, 
And with them did we journey several hours 
At a slow pace. The immeasurable height 
Of woods, decaying, never to be decayed, 
The stationary blasts of waterfalls. 
And in the narrow rent, at every turn. 
Winds thwarting winds bewildered and for- 
lorn. 
The torrents shooting from the clear blue sky, 
The rocks that muttered close upon our ears. 
Black drizzling crags that spake by the way- 
side 



IN WORDSWORTH'S POETRY 

As if a voice were in them, the sick sight 
And giddy prospect of the raving stream, 
The unfettered clouds and regions of the 

heavens. 
Tumult and peace, the darkness and the 

light- 
Were all like workings of one mind, the fea- 
tures 
Of the same face, blossoms upon one tree, 
Characters of the great Apocalypse, 
The types and symbols of Eternity, 
Of first, and last, and midst, and without 
end." 

Another instance of the poet's alertness to 
the voices of nature is the passage in the fifth 
book of "The Prelude," beginning, "There 
was a boy." The famous description of win- 
ter sports — 

"All shod with steel 
We hissed along the polished ice" — 

affords a good illustration of Wordsworth's 
delight in both sound and motion. 

No lovelier example of Wordsworth's 
9 



SOUND AND MOTION 

sense of the beauty of motion, as an expression 
of grace and gentleness, could be given than 
the lines which tell of the white Doe's weekly 
visit to Bolton Priory during the hour of ser- 
vice. The passage is perfect; — in diction, in 
imagery, in versification : 

"The only voice which you can hear 

Is the river murmuring near. 

— When soft ! — the dusky trees between, 

And down the path through the open green, 

Where is no living thing to be seen; 

And through yon gateway, where is found, 

Beneath the arch with ivy bound, 

Free entrance to the churchyard ground — 

Comes gliding in with lovely gleam, 

Comes gliding in serene and slow. 

Soft and silent as a dream, 

A solitary Doe! 

White she is as lily of June, 

And beauteous as the silver moon 

When out of sight the clouds are driven 

And she is left alone in heaven; 

Or like a ship some gentle day 

In sunshine sailing far away, 

lO 



IN WORDSWORTH'S POETRY 

A glittering ship, that hath the plain 
Of ocean for her own domain." 

Is there not something more than romantic 
fancy In the thought that Nature hath power 
to mould even the bodily form of one, who, 
from earliest childhood, lives in close sym- 
pathy with her, — in her daily presence? And 
shall not "beauty born of murmuring sound" 
pass into the face of the maiden who leans 
"her ear to many a secret place where rivu- 
lets dance their wayward round?" What 
could be more beautiful than the following 
exquisite stanzas from that most Wordsworth- 
ian poem, "Three years she Grew?" — 

"The floating clouds their state shall lend 

To her ; for her the willow bend ; 

Nor shall she fail to see 

Even in the motions of the storm 

Grace that shall mould the maiden's form 

By silent sympathy. 

"The stars of midnight shall be dear 
To her; and she shall lean her ear 
II 



SOUND AND MOTION 

To many a secret place 
Where rivulets dance their wayward round, 
And beauty born of murmuring sound 
Shall pass Into her face." 

Reference has already been made to the 
power possessed by the family of floods over 
the minds of poets, old and young. Our poet 
finds a friend In every babbling brook; "he 
loves the brooks far better than the sage's 
books." "Fondly I pursued," he tells us, 
"even when a child, the streams, unheard, un- 



"They taught me random cares and truant 

joys. 
That shield from mischief and preserve from 

stains 
Vague minds, while men are growing out of 

boys." 

"The Derwent, fairest of all rivers, loved to 
Blend his murmurs with my nurse's song, 
And, from his alder shades and rocky falls, 
And from his fords and shallows, sent a voice 
That flowed along my dreams." 



IN WORDSWORTH'S POETRY 

Certain rivers will always be associated with 
the name of Wordsworth. Everybody knows 
those sweetest and tenderest of poems, the 
three poems to the River Yarrow, — 

"Yarrow Stream! 
To dream-light dear while yet unseen, 
Dear to the common sunshine, 
And dearer still, as now I feel. 
To memory's shadowy moonshine." 

The sonnets to The River Duddon, though 
little known, are, indeed, refreshing when 
read on a summer day. They suggest what 
is cool, and sweet, and restful: you feel soft 
breezes ; you hear glad bird-notes ; you smell 
the delicate scent of wild flowers; you rejoice 
in green bowers and quivering sunbeams ; you 
follow the smooth, glistening River "through 
dwarf willows gliding and by ferny brake; 
you linger under the shade of green alders 
and silver birch-trees. As you advance with 
the majestic Duddon, in its "radiant progress 
toward the Deep," you feel your heart join- 
ing in the Poet's prayer that you may be 
13 



SOUND AND MOTION 

"Prepared, in peace of heart, in calm of mind 
And soul, to mingle with Eternity;" 

you find your spirit attuned to the noble dig- 
nity of the concluding sonnet of the series : — 

"I thought of Thee, my partner and my guide, 
As being past away. — Vain sympathies! 
For, backward, Duddon, as I cast my eyes, 
I see what was, and is, and will abide ; 
Still glides the Stream, and shall forever 

glide ; 
The Form remains ; the Function never dies ; 
While we, the brave, the mighty, and the 

wise. 
We Men, who in our morn of youth defied 
The elements, must vanish ; — be it so ! 
Enough, if something from our hands have 

power 
To live, and act, and serve the future hour; 
And if, as toward the silent tomb we go. 
Through love, through hope, and faith's 

transcendent dower. 
We feel that we are greater than we know." 

Matthew Arnold, in his "Memorial 
verses," says, — 

H 



IN WORDSWORTH'S POETRY 

"Keep fresh the grass upon his grave, 
O Rotha, with thy Hving wave ! 
Sing him thy best ! for few or none 
Hears thy voice right now he is gone." 

Wordsworth repeatedly uses the figure of 
the stream, or brook, or lake. In the intro- 
ductory sonnet to "Ecclesiastical Sonnets," he 
likens the Christian church to a Holy River, 
and follows the course of this Stream from its 
source, marking its progress through the cen- 
turies, until, in the closing sonnet of the series, 
he exclaims, — 

"Look forth! — that Stream behold, 
That Stream upon whose bosom we have 

passed 
Floating at ease while nations have effaced 
Nations, and Death has gathered to his fold 
Long lines of mighty kings — look forth my 

Soul! 
(Nor in this vision be thou slow to trust) 
The living waters, less and less by guilt 
Stained and polluted, brighten as they roll. 
Till they have reached the eternal city — built 
For the perfected Spirits of the just!" 
15 



SOUND AND MOTION 

In "The Prelude," the poet tells how, in 
that time of depression and bewilderment 
which followed the failure of the French Rev- 
olution, his beloved sister maintained for him 
a saving intercourse with his true self, — 

"Now speaking in a voice 
Of sudden admonition — like a brook 
That did but cross a lonely road, and now 
Is seen, heard, felt, and caught at every turn, 
Companion never lost through many a 
league." 

In "The Excursion" the Solitary thus de- 
scribes the grief of his young wife : 

"Calm as a frozen lake when ruthless winds 
Blow jRercely, agitating earth and sky, 
The Mother now remained." 

We find the same figure in the poem en- 
titled "Memory." The serenity of old age, 
when the life has been pure and the conscience 
is clear, is compared to the calm of 

— "lakes that sleep 
In frosty moonlight glistening, 
Or mountain rivers, where they creep 
i6 



IN WORDSWORTH'S POETRY 

Along a channel smooth and deep, 

To their own far-off murmurs listening." 

The very melody of these verses, so 
smooth and flowing, suggests the calm that 
they describe. In his poem "To The Sky- 
lark," Wordsworth likens the ecstatic out- 
pouring of the bird's song to the strong, free, 
impetuous flow of a mountain river : — 
"With a soul as strong as a mountain river 
Pouring out praise to the Almighty Giver." 

No poets observed more closely the move- 
ments of the clouds — the speechless clouds. In 
"The Excursion," speaking of that little low- 
ly vale, — 

"A lowly vale, and yet uplifted high 
Among the mountains," — 

the poet says, — 

"in such a place 
I would not willingly, methinks, lose sight 
Of a departing cloud." 

Two remarkable instances of the figurative 
use of the cloud should be noted. The first 
is that familiar simile, — 
17 



SOUND AND MOTION 

"I wandered lonely as a cloud 

That floats on high or vale and hills." 

The other is the famous description of the 
Leech Gatherer, old and decrepit : — 

"Upon the margin of that moorish flood 
Motionless as a cloud the old man stood, 
That heareth not the loud winds when they 

call 
And moveth altogether, if it move at all." 

Many, are the birds celebrated in Words- 
worth's verse, — birds of all degrees, from the 
daring hawk to the lordly eagle, from the 

— "darkling wren 
That tunes on Duddons banks her slender 
voice" — 

to the soaring lark, 

"Ethereal minstrel! pilgrim of the sky!" 

But our poet rejoices most in the cuckoo's 
vagrant voice : 

i8 



IN WORDSWORTH'S POETRY 

"Not the whole warbling grove in concert 

heard, 
When sunshine follows shower, the heart can 

thrill 
-Like the first summon's. Cuckoo ! of thy bill, 
With its twin notes inseparately paired." 

The poet tells us with what delight he 
heard that voice in a foreign land : 

"List — 'twas the cuckoo — O with what de- 
light 
Heard I that voice ! and catch it now though 

faint, 
Far off and faint, and melting into air, 
Yet not to be mistaken. Hark again ! 
Those louder cries give notice that the Bird, 
Although as invisible as Echo's self, 
Is wheeling hitherward. Thanks, happy crea- 
ture, 
For this unthought-of greeting !" 

■ No poet has so well described that wander- 
ing Voice: 

"Though babbling only to the Vale, 
19 



SOUND AND MOTION 

Of sunshine and flowers, 
Thou bringest unto me a tale 
Of visionary hours. 

"Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring ! 

Even yet thou art to me 

No bird, but an invisible thing, 

A voice, a mystery; 

"The same whom in my school-boy days 
I listened to ; that boy 
Which made me look a thousand ways 
In bush, and tree, and sky. 

"To seek thee did I often rove 
Through woods and on the green ; 
And thou wert still a hope, a love ; 
Still longed for, never seen. 

"And I can listen to thee yet; 
Can lie upon the plain 
And listen, till I do beget 
That golden time again. 

"O blessed Bird! the earth we pace 
Again appears to be 

20 



IN WORDSWORTH'S POETRY 

An unsubstantial fairy place, 
That is fit home for Thee." 



Way into manhood the poet remembered 
the song of the little wren which one day, in 
his school-boy time, sang so sweetly in the nave 
of the old church : 

"So sweetly mid the gloom the invisible bird 
Sang to herself, that there I could have made 
My dwelling-place, and lived forever there 
To hear such music," 

Among the bird verses there is nothing 
more exquisite than the following stanzas de- 
scribing the Green Linnet : 

"Amid yon tuft of hazel trees, 
That twinkle to the gusty breeze. 
Behold him perched in ecstasies, 
Yet seeming still to hover; 
There ! where the flutter of his wings 
Upon his back and body flings 
Shadows and sunny glimmerings, 
That cover him all over. 

21 



SOUND AND MOTION 

"My dazzled sight he oft deceives, 
A Brother of the dancing leaves; 
Then flits, and from the cottage-eaves 
Pours forth his song in gushes ; 
As if by that exulting strain 
He mocked and treated with disdain 
The voiceless Form he chose to feign 
While fluttering in the bushes." 

The picture of the Blue-cap is almost as full 
of life and joy: 

"Where is he that giddy sprite, 

Blue-cap, with his colors bright, 

Who was blest as bird could be, 

Feeding in the apple-tree ; 

Made such wanton spoil and rout. 

Turning blossoms inside out; 

Hung — head pointing towards the ground — 

Fluttered, perched, into a round 

Bound himself, and then unbound; 

Lithest, gaudiest Harlequin ! 

Prettiest tumbler ever seen ! 

Light of heart and light of limb ; 

What has now become of Him?" 

22 

LrfC. 



IN WORDSWORTH'S POETRY 

Very different from the flitting, fluttering, 
tumbling of this Blue-cap in the apple-tree, 
is the wide, sweeping, circling flight of the 
Water Fowl in their evolutions above the 
lake. 

"Mark how the feathered tenants of the 

flood. 
With grace of motion that might scarcely 

seem 
Inferior to angelical, prolong 
Their curious pastime ! shaping in mid air 
(And sometimes with ambitious wing that 

soars,' 
High as the level of the mountain-tops) 
A circuit ampler than the lake beneath — 
Their own domain ; but ever, while intent 
On tracing and retracing that large round, 
Their jubilant activity evolves 
Hundreds of curves and circlets, to and fro. 
Upward and downward, progress intricate 
Yet unperplexed, as if one spirit swayed 
Their indefatigable flight. 'Tis done — 
Ten times, or more, I fancied it had ceased ; 
But lo! the vanished company again 
23 



SOUND AND MOTION 

Ascending; they approach — I hear their 

wings, 
Faint, faint at first; and then at eager sound. 
Past in a moment — and as faint again ! 
They tempt the sun to sport amid their 

plumes; 
They tempt the water, or the gleaming ice, 
To show them a fair image; 'tis themselves. 
Their own fair forms, upon the glimmering 

plain, 
Painted more soft and fair as they descend 
Alm.ost to touch; — then up again aloft, 
Up, with a sally and a flash of speed. 
As if they scorned both resting-place and 

rest!" 

Wordsworth was never 

— "to the moods 
Of time and season, to the moral power. 
The affections and the spirit of the place 
Insensible." 

Though rejoicing always before the winds 
and roaring waters and in the lights and 
shades that march and countermarch about 
the hills in glorious apparition, he was most 
24 



IN WORDSWORTH'S POETRY 

responsive to the quieting influences of nature, 
he felt most deeply the stillness and calm of 
evening and early morning. We know this 
when he read that incomparable sonnet, 
"Composed upon Westminster Bridge," and 
the lovely sonnet beginning, "It is a beauteous 
evening, calm and free." Passages of great 
beauty (the beauty of truthfulness — the truth- 
fulness of one who not only sees but feels) 
might be culled from the many poems which 
describe the sober hour, its hush, its repose, Its 
deepening darkness. The finest of these even- 
ing voluntaries is the ode "Composed upon an 
Evening of Extraordinary Splendor and 
Beauty." No lover of poetry can read this 
ode without emotion and an uplift of the spir- 
it, without a vision of those fair countries to 
which we are bound. 

Wordsworth, as we have said, sensitive al- 
ways to the moods of time and place, felt 
what power there Is In sound, heard at a quiet 
hour and In a lonely place, to deepen the sense 
of calm and solitude. Note his description, 
near the close of the fourth book of "The 



25 



SOUND AND MOTION 

Excursion" of the raven's cry, heard at the 
hour when issue forth the first pale stars : 

"The solitary raven, flying 
Athwart the concave of the dark blue dome, 
Unseen, perchance above all power of sight." 
See also, in the same book of "The Excur- 
sion" what the poet says of 

— "that single cry, the unanswered bleat 
Of a poor lamb — left somewhere to itself, 
The plaintive spirit of the solitude." 

A stanza in the poem entitled "Fidelity," 
the stanza which describes the loneliness and 
remoteness of that cove far in the bosom of 
Helvellyn, affords another example of the 
power of sound to deepen the impression of 
stillness and solitude : 

"There sometimes does a leaping fish 
Send through the tarn a lonely cheer ; : 

The crags repeat the raven's crook, 
In symphony austere ; 
Thither the rainbow comes — the cloud — 
And mists that spread the flying shroud; 
And sunbeams ; and the sounding blast, 
26 



IN WORDSWORTH'S POETRY 

That, If it could, would hurry past; 
But that enormous barrier holds it fast." 



Somewhere in his poetry, Wordsworth 
speaks of the shadow of an object as that ob- 
ject's echo. Another instance of this tendency 
to transfer the function from the sense of see- 
ing to the sense of hearing is found in the lit- 
tle poem, "Airey-place Valley," The sway- 
ing motion of the light ash — a tree sensitive 
to the gentle touch of the breeze^ — is described 
as a "soft eye-music of slow-waving boughs." 
In the second book of "The Excursion" there 
is still another example. The Solitary has 
been telling of the part that two huge Peaks 
play in the wild concert which the wind, in his 
tuneful course, draws forth from rocks, 
woods, caverns, heaths, and crashing shores. 
"Nor have nature's laws," he adds, 
"Left them ungifted with a power to yield 
Music of finer tone; a harmony. 
So do I call it, though it be the hand 
Of silence, though there be no voice; — the 

clouds. 
The mists, the shadows, light of golden suns, 
27 



SOUND AND MOTION 

Motions of moonlight, all come hither — 

touch, 
And have an answer — thither come, and shape 
A language not unwelcome to sick hearts 

And Idle spirits." 

That Wordsworth, himself so alive to the 
beauty of sound, comprehended the loneliness 
of one who lives in utter silence, the following 
passage from "The Excursion" proves: 

"He grew up 
From year to year In loneliness of soul; 
And this deep mountain-valley was to him 
Soundless, with all Its streams. The bird of 

dawn 
Did never rouse this Cottager from sleep 
With startling summons, nor for his delight 
The vernal cuckoo shouted; not for him 
Murmured the labouring bee. When stormy 

winds 
Were working the broad bosom of the lake 
Into a thousand, thousand sparkling waves, 
Rolking the trees, or driving cloud on cloud 
Along the sharp edge of yon lofty crags, 
28 



IN WORDSWORTH'S POETRY 

The agitated scene before his eye 
Was silent as a picture : evermore 
Were all things silent, wheresoe'er he moved." 

Seen anywhere, should we not know these 
lines to be Wordsworth's ? — 
And you tall pine-tree, whose composing 

sound 
Was wasted on the good man's living ear, 
Hath now its own peculiar scantity ; 
And, at the touch of every wandering breeze, 
Murmurs, not idly, o'er his peaceful grave." 

These lines just quoted remind us of the 
poet's wish for the Farmer of Tilsbury: 

"I hope that thy grave, wheresoever it be. 
Will hear the wind blow through the leaves 
of a tree." 

We cannot read Wordsworth's poetry 
thoughtfully without being made to think 
what this world would be if Nature nev- 
er gave a brook to murmur or a bough to 
29 



SOUND AND MOTION 

wave! What a desolate earth this would be' 
without Life, and Voice, and Motion ! 

Perhaps the most grateful and exalted 
tribute ever paid by poet to the salutary and 
composing influence of nature is found in that 
passage in "The Prelude" which has been 
called a prayer and anthem, a gloria in ex- 
celsis : 

"Yet were I grossly destitute of all 
Those human sentiments that make this earth 
So dear, if I should fail with grateful voice 
To speak of you, ye mountains, and ye lakes 
And sounding cataracts, ye mists and winds 
That dwell among the hills where I was born. 
If in my youth I have been pure in heart, 
If, mingling with the world, I am content 
With my own modest pleasures, and have 

lived 
With God and Nature communing, removed 
From little enmities and low desires — 
The gift is yours; if in these times of fear,* 
This melancholy waste of hopes o'erthrown, 



* French Revolution. 
30 



IN WORDSWORTH'S POETRY 

If, mid indifference and apathy, 
And wicked exultation when good men 
On every side fall off, we know not how. 
To selfishness, disguised in gentle names, 
Of peace and quiet and domestic love 
Yet mingled not unwillingly with sneers 
On visionary minds; if, in this time 
Of dereliction and dismay, I yet 
Despair not of our nature, but retain, 
A more than Roman confidence, a faith 
That fails not, in all sorrow my support. 
The blessing of my life — the gift is yours, 
Ye winds and sounding cataracts ! 'tis yours. 
Ye mountains ! thine, O Nature ! Thou hast 

fed 
My lofty speculations ; and in thee. 
For this uneasy heart of ours, I find 
A never-failing principle of joy 
And purest passion. 



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